Scientific analysis reveals that American audiences just want to be
entertained

February 06, 2017 02:42 AM Eastern Daylight Time

LOS ANGELES--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Ace Metrix, the leader in measuring the impact of television and digital
advertising, released results of its analysis of yesterday’s Super Bowl
LI ads, which revealed that this year, Americans overwhelmingly embraced
lighthearted, relatable, entertainment over heavy emotion, messaging,
and controversial topics. The list of standout Super Bowl LI ads was
derived through scientific calculation of audience ratings (minimum 500
U.S. viewers per ad) and verbatim comments on creative attributes such
as attention, likeability, relevance, change, polarity, and emotion.

“The problem with ads that inflict some sort of political opinion on the
audience, just like campaign ads themselves is that they are ineffective
in swaying opinions which by now are heavily dug in. Whatever side of
the political spectrum, you either wholeheartedly agree, or adamantly
disagree.”

“The country has been through an endless political food fight for more
than a year and it appears that the largest television viewing audience
was anxious for some relief, rather than more preaching, and most brands
gauged that mood correctly,” said Peter Daboll, CEO of Ace Metrix. This
year’s creative crop was heavy on celebrities, humor (some lighthearted,
some borderline gross), and entertaining visuals – and relatively light
on struggle, charitable endeavors, and controversy -- although there
were a few.

“The problem with ads that inflict some sort of political opinion on the
audience, just like campaign ads themselves is that they are ineffective
in swaying opinions which by now are heavily dug in. Whatever side of
the political spectrum, you either wholeheartedly agree, or adamantly
disagree.” Daboll continued, “For advertisers, this approach is fraught
with risk because no brand actually seeks to push half their potential
audience away. Most brands that dole out the big dollars for Super Bowl
airtime have the objective of speaking (and selling) to a huge, diverse,
mass market. Yes, we consumers want our brands to stand for something,
but if the stand is controversial, like hiring a polarizing celebrity,
it can offend much of your target.” There were some ads that took a
‘piling on politics’ penalty, particularly 84 Lumber, a newbie to Super
Bowl advertising.

A few brands that treaded carefully on edgy topics were successful. When
rated by an audience representative of the general population, these ads
(such as Audi’s “Daughter” or Budweiser’s “Born the Hard Way”) show very
little viewer disagreement. In fact, viewers ranked “Daughter” as one of
the best-liked and least polarizing ads of this year’s game. Likewise,
beer drinkers responded favorably to Budweiser’s origin story, slightly
higher than Bud Light’s “Ghost Spuds.”

Ace Metrix data also revealed an unusual trend in Super Bowl advertising
– brands leveraging the Super Bowl audience, but re-running ads that
have previously aired. Big names such as Google Home, Coke, Wendy’s,
Fiji Water, Airbnb, and Sprite took this approach in 2017. These ads
were excluded from Ace Metrix rankings, as they did not represent
original Super Bowl creative.

The best Super Bowl LI ads, as rated by American audiences, were
those that took a lighthearted approach to everyday life – those that
sought to entertain through visuals, relatable storytelling, and/or
humor and in Nintendo’s case, a great product.

The Standouts of Super Bowl LI

These ads exhibited broad audience appeal, likeable visuals and
characters, and relevant, often funny, storylines. These were also the
least polarizing, which is appropriate for the huge, diverse Super Bowl
audience.

These well-received creative efforts were new entries to the Super Bowl
and delivered a surprise or change in direction to viewers. In
particular, Nintendo was able to demonstrate an innovative new product
with an entertaining ad that viewers responded to. Procter & Gamble’s
humorous and somewhat edgy Mr. Clean, and even “Halftime Bathroom Break”
worked across demographics.

Poorly rated by Ace Metrix methodology (leveraging 500 new viewers for
each ad), these spots were often more polarizing with questionable
humor, low relevance, or seemingly nonsensical/hard to follow storylines
in viewers’ eyes. 84 Lumber’s ad that aired on television was one of the
poorest performers across all Super Bowl ads Ace Metrix has tested. This
is at least in part due to the fact that it was only a partial ad that
directed viewers to their website to view the final 3.25 minutes.
Squarespace’s :30 “Calling JohnMalkovich.com” just wasn’t able to
communicate information clearly (their :60 digital ad performed much
better), and finally, Sprint’s humor attempt fell flat (father faking
his own death). Several viewers were offended at the “daddy’s dead”
levity in an audience that contains children.

Snickers deserves some credit for staging the first ever “live” Super
Bowl ad, however, by the time viewers caught up to the storyline, it was
over. “Ironically this ad might have benefited by having more frequency
for the viewers to appreciate the comical storyline,” said Peter Daboll.

Ace Metrix measures ad creative effectiveness based on viewer reaction
to video ads, providing the advertising industry an unbiased resource to
measure creative impact. Ace Metrix scores every national television ad,
and an expanding proportion of digital ads, across 96 categories
creating a complete comparative database—Ace Metrix LIVE®. A unique
panel of at least 500 consumers, demographically balanced to the U.S.
census, scores each ad in the exact same manner. The results are
presented on a scale of 1–950, which represents scoring on creative
attributes such as Attention, Likeability, Information, Change,
Relevance, Desire and Watchability. Ace Metrix applies a natural
language processing algorithm to the hundreds of qualitative verbatim
responses collected for each ad, deriving additional metrics related to
emotional engagement.

Ace Metrix provides data and insight to enable marketers and creative
teams to produce more impactful work, test and adjust creative
executions in real-time, and understand what creative drivers impact
their brand KPIs. The Company is privately held and is backed by leading
venture capital firms and industry leaders including Hummer Winblad
Venture Partners, Palomar Ventures, Leapfrog Ventures and WPP.

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